


Afterlight

by Matrix_Matriarch



Series: Great Cybertronian Works [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Afterlight, Fictional Literary Work, Gen, Megatron has Regrets(tm), Megatron's Poems, Other, Poetry, Speculative, Starscream and Terminus are briefly mentioned, War Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-10 22:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20142835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matrix_Matriarch/pseuds/Matrix_Matriarch
Summary: They say the greatest art is forged in the harshest conditions. Surrounded by death and despair in the Pits of Kaon, Megatron makes great art indeed, and not all of it is completely appropriate to his campaign.(If you've ever wanted to see Megatron's poetry, the essays written by the Lost Light crew, songs and lullabies alluded to in various Transformers media, etc, this series is for you! Also contains the occasional backstory, because we all love those).





	Afterlight

##### Afterlight

A borrowed light ignited in the stars,  
Rends metal rivers from afar.  
All mesh is slag, and molten runs  
Back to the monotonous machinery hum.

Cold barrel, Ouroboros, circle within circle,  
Warmed within and without with a warning: vengeful purple.  
Re-purposed sunbeams, starlight anew,  
Dies away to flames burning blue.

Sparking husks cool and spark no more.  
All monument to the Spark’s immortality must fall.  
You flare, you flicker, you fade.  
And in the end, all your tomorrows become yesterdays.

_Author: Megatron, formerly D-16, Anonymous on original publication._

Mining Unit D-16 hated the Pits. The staged brutality, misdirected rage, futile violence for which the only accomplishment was amusement of the Senators and upper class Cybertronians who regarded the murders as entertainment. The only reason he came to the matches was to write his poetry. Miners and other members of the working class weren't granted much in the way of amenities, but standing in the groundlings' pit with nothing but bars between them and the fighters was one of the small supposed luxuries allowed after a day's work, and it was guaranteed no suspicious supervisor or nosy noble would dirty their servos to investigate this particular hole. The groundlings' pit may be separated physically from the official Pits of Kaon, but they had seen their fair share of tussles and even more serious fights inspired by the spectacles just beyond the grating. Not only that, but it was rampant with diseases due to the corpses being slung in alongside the groundlings after each match until collection at the end of the day. It was a rough place to be if you couldn't hold your own, but that was perfect for avoiding prying eyes. More sick minded mechs liked to stand at the sides where the bodies would be thrown, making it easy enough for D-16 to blend in with them and ask for Primus' forgiveness before etching his poetry into the transformation seams, armour flaps and spark casings of the dead miners, whose carcasses would be recovered by one of Terminus' contacts to distribute the necrotic first editions of Megatron's writings to the eager general public. There really was something horrifically poetic about the methodology. None of the other groundlings gave him or the mechs with less savoury intentions a second look.

Sometimes D-16 would glance up from his writing, optics drawn by raucous bellows of pain, of victory, of despair. It was hard not to be distracted, when he was so close to the gladiators that at times, even over the baying of the crowds, he'd hear the quick stuttering vents, see tiny droplets of coolant condense on plating, armour seized by an opponent and pressed against the grating to the groundlings' pit until it crumples and yields to the very ununtrium in the bars those miners spent their whole lives mining, only to die clinging to while sobbing from pain. D-16 was half inclined to weep with them, but he had work to do, and a voice to be heard. There was no room for weeping when all the space in his spark was dedicated to the flare of rage at the suffering of all under the Functionist regime. Though for the moment the cheers of the crowd drowned out the mech's fruitless pleas, Megatron would soon enough give voice to their cries so that they would listen. They must listen.

D-16 doesn't always sympathise with the gladiators, however. On one occasion, he heard a booming roar, and saw a heavy framed miner standing over the broken body of his opponent, the weapon, heavy on his arm - sleek, shiny power coiled smoking in grey cylindrical form. Grey, the colour of most metals, of raw sentio metallico, of the skies of Kaon, smoggy with industry. Then the grey was tinged with violet, a roiling glow that burned beneath the surface and suddenly seethed out, spilling a thick beam of purple plasma into the chest of the fallen mech, securing his victory. The brightness of the purple light is searing, and as it fades in time with the sparklight of its victim it leaves a yellow-green afterimage; a queasy, sickly hue. The illusion of visible light after all light has faded. A fusion cannon. A weapon which can rend all metals like nothing. Its power lends tasteless pride to the victor, who strides out of the Pit with a level of triumph unbefitting to a mech who has at most prolonged his lifespan a few decacycles. Does he realise, still running on the high of battle, how little time he surely has left?

The poem D-16 was drafting has taken a turn. It doesn't quite echo the righteous anti-Functionist sentiments he was aiming for, but rather a more subtle concern for fatality and life. He couldn't send this on to be published as Megatron, but he didn't want to let it go to waste. After deliberating for a while, he decided to mark it to be anonymously published. Those closest to his work would surely recognise his style and know who has written it, but he trusts them to use discretion not to give away his identity.

Several centivorns later, when Starscream placed the fusion cannon on Megatron's right arm after the Senate's defeat and he at last felt its considerable weight and power as his own, he allowed a smile flicker across his lips. Poetic irony indeed.

Analysis:  
The tone of Afterlight is a particularly strange one given it's context. Written allegedly long before Megatron's wartime guilt took root, it ought to be classified as one of his pre-war call-to-arms; another radical poem preaching social reform with the goal of galvanising the masses into an anti-Functionist mindset. Despite the fact that in canon we are only given the last two lines and the title, it is quite clear that the intended message was perhaps more obliquely connected to anti-Functionism, if at all. Rather, it seems to be a more remorseful tone commenting on the inevitability of falling from glory, fitting to an old warlord about to face trial which Megatron was when he quoted it, but surprising for the young idealist intent on changing the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to leave critique/advice, I appreciate all feedback for my writing.


End file.
